The surprise hit of 2015, Kingsman: The Secret Service, was flashy, exciting, funny and, above all else, extravagantly violent. Matthew Vaughn crafted quite the unusual but fun feature and it almost guaranteed everyone involved a sequel. Well, here we are with Kingsman: The Golden Circle. The film has the Kingsman going up against the criminal syndicate known as The Golden Circle and will partner up with their American counterpart, The Statesman. So, how is Matthew Vaughn’s latest entry into the Kingsman franchise? Despite some problems, it’s a mostly positive response.

The film has a 69% rating on Rotten Tomatoes where critics are calling the film fun and just as violent as the first but also stating that the film is overstuffed and carries no weight. Check out what critics are saying below!

It is all aggressively stylized, abusively fast-paced and ear-bleedingly loud, relying so heavily on CGI that nothing — not one thing — seems to correspond to the real world. That might have been different had the 2016 U.S. presidential election turned out differently, since the idea seems to have been for Emily Watson, who appears as the Hillary Clinton-coiffed chief of staff to Bruce Greenwood’s American president, to play the commander in chief herself.

It’s never clear whether Kingsman: The Golden Circle is supposed to be more than the sum of these fights, or whether it’s just marking time by poking at raw political nerves in between. The filmmakers seem to know it doesn’t matter. Their strength lies in being distinctively fast, loud, and glib — and never letting the audience think too hard about what’s going on. The Golden Circle isn’t strong on brains or heart, but it has no shortage of guts.

The Golden Circle has a few of the comically brutal spasms of action that gave the first film its caffeinated energy, but they don’t have the same bonkers Oddjob kick of Sofia Boutella and her lethal legblades. Instead, there’s just more of everything else, including Vaughn’s leering boys-will-be-boys humor. If the first Kingsman, at its best, felt like a dry martini of a joke, then this one is more Jack and Mountain Dew — unsubtle, unrefreshing, and unnecessary.

What seemed, at the outset, to be too, too much, finally feels quite all right by the end. Still, there are lessons to be kept in mind: Except for the water-logged Thunderball, all the Connery Bond films ran less than two hours and were better for it, while the initial Indiana Jones and and first two Star Wars chapters were kept within a couple of minutes of two hours either way. If they can do it, future Kingsman outings certainly can, too, and would be better for it.

No one is having a better time in Matthew Vaughn’s “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” than Julianne Moore, which is saying something. The director’s first sequel (no, he didn’t direct “Kick-Ass 2,” yes, “X-Men: First Class” is its own franchise-starter) is as high energy and bonkers as anything he’s made yet. As the film’s primary baddie, nefarious drug kingpin Poppy, Moore gleefully zips her way through every wacky scene, bolstered by an inventive setting that speaks to Vaughn’s intense imagination and the scope of his off-kilter super-spy vision.

There are a lot of toys for Vaughn to play with here, and for the most part he plays well, but there’s not quite enough to justify the unwieldy 141-minute run time. Harry’s return feels stretched and laboured and the whole “Glasto” episode (including the aforementioned Tracking Device Scene) is something we honestly could have lived without. But Vaughn clearly can’t get enough of his Kingsmen. After all, he’s having too much fun.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is as cheeky, cartoonish, and crazy as its predecessor, but it’s also commendably unafraid to demolish what had come before it if it’s in service of the story. The new dynamic between Eggsy and his team is great, and the Statesman prove amusing counterparts to these gentlemen spies from across the pond.

As a whole, Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a genre-bending romp that has too many on-point gags and action scenes that work to be anything less than entertaining. Keep an eye out for a scene involving a runaway ski lift as a particular showstopper. But even with these grin-inducing moments, Vaughn and Goldman’s knack for juggling tones and aesthetics with a laser-focus on plot and characterization might have finally reached its limit. While they still keep all the balls in the air, there were moments where you might begin to wonder in spite of all that cinematic confidence.

So what do you think? Are you watching Kingsman: The Golden Circle this weekend? Comment below and on social media and for all things in nerd culture and entertainment, keep it locked on Talkies Network!

Share this:

Published by Talkies Network

Three friends talking about movies, video games, comic-books and anime. We do videos and articles. Be warned, you chose this. Site created by Nick Poulimenakos, Artur Galvao and Mathew 'JJ' Simoes.
View all posts by Talkies Network

Advertisements

Follow Our Website via Email

Enter your email address to follow this website and receive notifications of new posts by email.